The Melting Planet
by TaylorTheWeird
Summary: The Venusian city of Inanna - known for its towering buildings, cultural diversity, and thriving nightlife. When the Doctor and Rose arrive, they find an evacuated city, an abandoned people, and a planetary Volcano Day.
1. Chapter 1

**The Melting Planet**

**Chapter 1**

Jackie gave a scathing glance to the tall, thin man in a brown suit fluttering around behind her as she poured hot water into four mugs. If the man noticed her caustic glare, he certainly didn't acknowledge it, continuing to wander about the flat with the level of concentration of an attention deficit child. Currently he was opening drawers, peering inside for half a second, and then moving onto the next one. Not looking for something, just curiosity. Needless to say, half of the drawers and cupboards were left open. Jackie picked up three of the mugs, leaving one for the Doctor, and headed out into the living room, where her daughter, Rose, and Rose's ex-boyfriend, Mickey, were sharing gossip.

"You're _kidding_, right? Helen's pregnant with _Stephen's_ baby?! I didn't even know they were together!"

"They're not. Well, not anymore. While you've been out there, running around with aliens in the year 1400 or whatever it is you've been doing, all of us have been going along with our normal, boring lives." The biting tone of Mickey's tone was lost on no one.

Jackie handed Rose and Mickey their tea and sat down herself. "So, Rose, Hun, how long are you and Doctor planning on staying this time?"

"Just today and tomorrow," she answered, blowing on her tea.

"At least, until something comes up and you have to leave before then," Jackie said. Mickey gave a look that said it was on his mind too.

Rose frowned, and, not being able to say anything to counter that statement, took a sip from her drink, and, determining that the tea was too hot still, put it down on the coffee table.

"Oy! Use a coaster!" Jackie barked before going back the previous topic. "Rose, I rarely see you enough as it is, and then whenever you visit, you always leave as soon as you arrive, it seems. How am I to know that you and the Doctor won't run off and it'll be another year before I see you?"

"Mum…" Rose gave a pleading look to Mickey, who gave a small shrug. Once Jackie got into one of her tirades, no force in the universe could interfere without evoking her wrath.

"Don't 'mum' me. Every time you run off with that man, I get so worried. You could die out there, and I would never know! Do you know how hard that is, going through daily life, knowing that my own daughter is out in the universe, doing God-knows-what on some alien planet?"

"Fine. I get it. We'll stay the full two days. No running off on this trip. Got that, Doctor?" Rose shouted into the other room.

"Got it," came a reply from down the hall. The Doctor had moved on to Rose's room. Both Jackie and Mickey marked off his behavior as just being weird, but Rose knew that he was intentionally trying to stay out of their conversation and give them some space.

"I sorry, Mum, Mickey; I know you both want me to come home, but if you could see the things out there that I've seen. If you could see the future, the past, the all other worlds out there, you'd want to travel with the Doctor, too."

"I just want to know that you're safe." Jackie pleaded, grasping onto her mug with both hands.

"We've been over this, Mum. The Doctor takes good care of me. I trust him."

"Well, I don't."

Mickey, not wanting to be caught in the middle of an argument between Rose and her mother – both of whom, incredibly stubborn, tried to change the topic. "So, Rose, you mentioned earlier about you and the Doctor visiting a city on Venus and having to keep it from falling into lava in the future. What exactly happened?"

Rose flashed him a smile. Good ol' Mickey – she made a mental note that she'd have to repay him somehow. "Well, it all started about a few days after the Doctor and I had that incident with Queen Victoria and that werewolf-"

Jackie cut her off. "Queen Victoria and a WEREWOLF?! Now I KNOW you have to be making that up!" she declared incredulously.

"Yes. A werewolf, Mum. And the Doctor and I were knighted. As I was saying - Venus. The Doctor and I took three days off from travelling and spent it, just the two of us, together in the TARDIS. The next day–"

"Just what were you two doing during that time?"

"We were just in the TARDIS –"

"Doing WHAT?"

Mickey focused his eyes on his tea when Rose pleadingly looked at him again. He was _not_ getting dragged into this. "We weren't doing _anything_, Mum. Just talking and… stuff.

"_Stuff_?"

"_Muuuum_!"

"You better not bring be back any alien, three-headed grandchildren!"

"WHAT?! NO! The Doctor and I aren't… we're not, you know… Just, NO! No! We're just not!"

Jackie flashed her a disapproving look, but remained silent, allowing Rose to continue her story.

"ANYWAY! I was sleeping in my bed in the TARDIS…

...

The whirring-wheezing noise of the TARDIS in flight accompanied by jerking motions that almost made her fall out of her bed was what woke Rose up that morning, if morning is what you'd call it. After all – there was no real sense of time in the TARDIS. You could wake up in the French Revolution in the morning, by noon, go swimming at the bioluminescent lake of the planet Ariel, and at the end of the day, have dinner with Genghis Khan (of whom Rose thought wasn't quite as bad as all the stories made him out to be, although his table manners were atrocious.)

Wiping the sleep out of her eyes, Rose slid into the fuzzy slippers situated next to her bed. She always kicked them off wherever – sometimes even in a different room of the TARDIS – but, somehow, whenever she needed them, they were always next to the bed. She couldn't figure out if the Doctor put them there or if was the TARDIS itself. Stranger things had happened. She kept meaning to ask him about that.

She shuffled through the impossible number of rooms to the control room to see where the Doctor had landed them, why, and, most importantly, to complain about his interrupting her sleep.

"Good morning, Rose!" he declared cheerfully, not even glancing up from the screen on the consol.

"Mornin'…" she groggily replied. "Any particular reason why you felt that now would be a good time to fly around?"

The Doctor looked up and gave her one of his winning grins. "Nope! Absolutely none at all."

Rose gave him a dark look. It was too early for this.

He ignored her dark expression. "Glad you see you're up, though. Whaddya say - how does Venus sound?"

"What if I said no?" Rose responded, yawning.

The Doctor's grin widened. "Well, too late for that, because we've already landed."

"You're impossible." Rose said, humor in her voice. Both of them knew that she'd never turn down his offers of various travel destinations.

"Nothing's impossible, Rose, but I'll take unlikely."

"So, what's on Venus?"

"The city of Inanna – the planet's capital. Founded in 2142, it was site of the first manned expedition to Venus, and, later the first human colony on Venus. Now, in 3529, it's one of the largest human cities, nearly triple the size of London."…

...

At this point, the Doctor walked into the living room, tea in hand and cut Rose off. "_Ac_-tually, Inanna was founded in the year _2143, _not 2142. And it's _larger_ than three times London. Higher population density, too. More akin to Tokyo, in that respect, really. At its peak, it was a little over fifteen-thousand people per square mile, although, when we landed, in 3774, it was a little under four hundred. Mostly human population, but with a large number of cross-breeds who immigrated from Earth, seeking more equality." The Doctor sat down next to Rose and sipped his tea.

"As with most Venusian cities, it's named after a goddess of love. Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of fertility, sex, and war. For the most part, aptly named; the city had a reputation of the inhabitants being a tad promiscuous. Fortunately, never lived up to that war portion. I don't know what it is about humans, but 'themed planets' will become such a fad in the future. Just seems to cheapen things from my point of view. Look at Pluto – perfectly good planet, and then you humans have to make it so depressing by naming everything on it after death. Hades and Nergal are simply _terrible_ city names. It's no wonder the suicide rate there is so high – Welllll, then again, could partially be from that being-so-far-away-from-the-sun-to-the-point-where-it-always-just-looks-like-a-bright-star thing…" the Doctor then turned to look each of them in the eye with absolute solemnity. "Pluto. Is. A. Planet." He then slipped back into his normal cheerful demeanor.

"All-in-all, Inanna; lovely city. Great character. Friendly people." He took another sip and put his feet up on the coffee table "Might I add, Jackie, that this tea is exquisite. Where ever did you get it?"

"Tesco," she said, flatly, obviously not moved by his attempted compliment and irritated about his feet on the furniture.

Rose leaned over to Mickey and jokingly whispered, "See what I have to put up with all the time?"

"How do you stand it?" Mickey sarcastically whispered back, with a smile.

"Ay! I heard that!"

Mickey rolled his eyes. "Back to the story. Rose, you said the two of you landed in 3529 and the Doctor said 3774. He called you out on that one-year difference but not that one. That's almost two hundred fifty years apart."

"No, no. She was right, and so was I. The TARDIS doesn't always end up in the time period that I tell it to. Or the right planet, sometimes. She's a tad temperamental. I was aiming for 3529, but ended up two hundred forty-five years later."

Rose gave the Doctor a playful whack on the head. "I wasn't _at that part yet._ You're ruining my story."

"Well it was coming up." Another whack. The Doctor held a hand up in mock surrender. "Fine, fine. Ignore the nine-hundred year old genius expert. But you know me. Can't resist a good yarn. Carry on."

"As I was saying before the Doctor so _rudely_ interrupted, I was regaled with more information than I could ever use about Inanna…"

...

"And, since you're up, let's be off!" The Doctor waltzed towards the TARDIS doors.

"I'm in my jim jams," Rose stated.

The Doctor spun on his heel to face her. "And?"

"And my slippers."

He simply looked at her.

Rose sighed. "I'm getting dressed. Don't leave without me." About fifteen minutes later, Rose emerged in jeans and a t-shirt.

"We ready now?" The Doctor asked. Rose gave a nod. "Alright-y then! Allons-y!" He put his hand on the handle of the TARDIS door.

"Wait! Doesn't Venus have a poisonous atmosphere or something?"

"Well, yes, but –"

"And you're just going to open the door."

The Doctor grinned. "Oh, you do know me too well, Rose Tyler." He opened the TARDIS door with a flourish.

Rose expected billowing amounts of yellow and orange gas to fill the room, choking the two of them to death, but, nothing.

"Now, you see, Rose, no danger. Venus was terraformed in 2450. Cleaned up all that sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and all those other 'dioxides' in the atmosphere, added a bit of oxygen and hydrogen, regulated the temperature, added some water, and made the land suitable for growing crops. One of the first non-earth-like planets you humans did terraforming to, too. Mars - there was no issue there. The moon – difficult, I'll take that- but everything fell into place once the atmosphere was established that it would stay _this_ time. Even Saturn's moon, Titan, was terraformed relatively easily – it already had water and an atmosphere with a similar pressure to Earth's –all they had to do was heat it up and take away all that pesky hydrogen cyanide and it was ready to go! But Venus! Oh! Venus was a tricky one. Took about fifty or sixty years to make it habitable without a big glass dome… _Well_, actually, the dome was Plexiglas, but you get the idea. Shall we have a look?" and with that, the Doctor strode out the door, Rose in tow.

The first thing Rose noticed was a gust of hot air. She looked around. The land was barren – there were plants, yes, but no live ones. Up in the sky, the color was similar to Earth's blue but with more yellowish.

The Doctor noticed Rose's gaze to the sky. "Yeaaaah… although Venus's atmosphere is almost completely similar to Earth's at this point, they never could get that color out. Kinda like a carpet stain that never goes away, no matter how hard you scrub. Hypothetically, of course. You can't scrub the sky."

"But Venus is supposed to be orange! And where are all these plants from?" Rose exclaimed. This was nothing like the textbooks from her science classes.

"Didn't you listen at all to my little speech about the terraforming?"

"I tried, but I had no idea what you're talking about, so I kinda stopped paying attention." Rose said, still taking it all in.

"They changed the planet to resemble the Earth more. Its environment, its land, its magnetic field – all of it, recreated." The Doctor explained. "Although, it shouldn't be this hot. One component of the terraforming process was changing the temperature as well. It should be a temperate twenty-three degrees celcius, but it's abouuuut…." The Doctor stuck his finger in his mouth, and then held it out to the wind. "Mmm… thirty-two degrees. Also, there's a storm coming, so we should hurry to the city before it hits."

"One problem. What city? You've landed us in the middle of nowhere, Doctor."

"Oh, it's right over there. About five miles over," the Doctor said, already walking in that direction.

"Five miles!" Rose exclaimed.

"Yup! Be glad that you're wearing your trainers!" And they were off...

...

"So you made my daughter walk five miles in thirty-two degree weather?" Jackie snapped. "Couldn't you have just moved your flying blue box closer?"

"That's what I wanted to know," said Rose.

The Doctor raised his shoulders defensively. "Well, _yeah_, I could have, but the TARDIS was already being temperamental when I was flying it. I was afraid that if I tried to move it, it might have ended up farther off course. And, Jackie, it's called a _TARDIS_, not 'flying blue box.'" Jackie scowled. The Doctor calmly sipped his tea, a small grin on his face.

Mickey laughed. "You were already two-hundred fifty years off course. Sounds like you couldn't have ended up much farther."

"Well, I didn't know that _then_, did I?"

"Doctor! I'm telling my story!" Rose huffed.

"Don't look at me! Your mother was the one who disrupted you this time." This earned him a jab in the ribs. "You are downright abusive today!" he joked.

"ANYWAY, eventually we got to the city…."

Rose and the Doctor looked out upon the tall, spire of the buildings once they arrived. The emptiness-

"Didn't you forget the part with the shoes on the walk over?" the Doctor interrupted.

Rose gave him an angry stare. "If you're so interested in interrupting me, why don't you tell it?"

"Alright, then, since you asked so nicely." The Doctor took a sip, took his feet off the table, and leaned over. "In the middle of the walk, Rose noticed some thing odd about the constancy of the ground…"

"Doctor! How much longer do we have to go? It's hot and my feet are beginning to hurt," Rose complained. "Can't we just go back to the TARDIS and land closer?"

"Come on, Rose. It's not that much farther."

Rose stopped. "And how much is 'not that much'?"

"Ehhh… about the same distance we just travelled." He said, still going forwards. Rose stayed where she was. The Doctor eventually turned around. "Well, what are you standing there for? Since we're already halfway there, might as well keep going. Look, you can see it right there." He pointed into the distance. It was kind of blurry –there was some sort of weather between them, obscuring their view - but they could make out buildings – a tall and strange array of skinny skyscrapers.

Rose glared, but started walking anyway. "Hey, does the ground feel weird to you?" she asked.

"Now that you mention it, it does feel a tad sticky," the Doctor said, looking at his shoes. More dirt than usual was embedded into the underside. He brought a finger to the bottom of them with the intention of giving a stroke, but he quickly pulled his hand away upon touching, as it if brought him pain. "We need to move quickly through this area." And with that, he pulled her into a run, the Doctor noticing his feet sinking into the ground somewhat with every step....

...

"Well, what was it? Why was the ground sticky?" Mickey asked.

"If I told you now, I'd completely ruin the sense of suspense later, wouldn't I?"

"I think he just wants to show off that big brain of his. He's always doing that; keeping information to himself until he has to share," Rose butted in.

"Heyyy. You'd want to show off too if you were as clever as I am."

"I swear, you two sound like an old married couple," Jackie pointedly said as she finished the last of her mug. She stood up and looked into everyone else's glasses, noticing Mickey and the Doctor's were empty. "Who wants more tea?" she asked.

Both the Doctor and Mickey offered up their glasses. Rose looked down at hers on the table, all but forgotten. It had gone cold. Jackie picked up Rose's glass anyway. "I'll warm yours up for you, dear."

"Thanks, mum," Rose shouted behind her as Jackie left the room.

The Doctor got up and paced around the room, restless again. Rose could never figure out how his thin frame could always hold so much energy. Always fidgety, he was; she had always noticed it, but his little eccentricities seemed so much more visible in contrast to the domestic location.

A small, awkward silence. Rose didn't want to say anything to the Doctor for fear that Mickey would feel left out, and vice versa. The Doctor was the one to finally break it.

"So, Mickey, haven't seen much of you in a while. How have things on Earth been?"

Mickey sank in his seat. "'S'alright, I suppose. Nothing that would interest either of you, having been everywhere in the universe and all…"

"Naaaaw, I wouldn't say that – there's all sorts of adventure to be had in the mundane. Just gotta look for it."

"Oh yeah?" Mickey exclaimed. "Like what?" The Doctor was silent. Mickey continued. "What do you know about life here? That's just it, you don't, so don't even try pulling that 'adventure in everyday life' rubbish with me."

Rose covered her face with her hands. She knew a blow up between Mickey and the Doctor was inevitable, but she had hoped that it wouldn't have to be this visit. Not now. She couldn't back out of it, either; make up some emergency that they had to go attend to – she'd promised to her mother that they'd stay the full two days.

The Doctor stood in front of Mickey and leaned over, hands clasped behind his back, until his long nose almost touched Mickey's small one. He spoke in a low voice "Still bitter about Rose coming with me, eh." Mickey glared. The Doctor straightened up again and put his hands in his pockets. "Shame. And here I was, hoping that we could be civil, even if only for her sake."

Jackie walked out of the kitchen with the four mugs. If she had heard the conversation in the other room, then she showed no sign of it as she handed everyone their tea. "So, since the Doctor won't explain what was with the sticky ground, what happened then?"

Rose tried to take a taste of her tea, but burned her tongue. Too hot. She set it down. "Well after we finished running, it started to rain."

"I didn't know that it rained on Venus," Jackie stated.

The Doctor blew on his steaming cuppa. "Even before the terraforming process, it rained on Venus. Not water-rain, of course. Sulfuric acid. None of it ever touched the planet's surface, either. The planet was so hot that it would evaporate in the middle of falling. Virga, it's called when it does that. After the conditions became more Earth-like - the sulfuric acid removed, the temperature regulated, and the water successfully added to the planet's terrain - it began to rain water like it does here."

Rose nodded. "So, we were caught in the rain…"

...

Water ran down Rose's face. She scowled. It was pouring, but seemed to be letting up. They were both drenched to the bone. At least it wasn't so hot anymore, Rose was glad for that much.

"Not much farther now!" The Doctor announced. The tall, strange skyscrapers of Inanna were close enough for the pair to appreciate them if they weren't caught in a downpour. Funny, how torrential rain always seems to put a damper on one's admiration of the things. Rose just wanted to get somewhere dry.

As they got closer, the rain slowed to a slow, but steady, drizzle. A sense of unease fell upon the Doctor and Rose. The few buildings that they passed seemed to be in disarray, and the silence. Besides the pattering of the rain on the ground, the sloshing of mud as their feet hit the earth, and their occasional conversation, there was an eerie stillness. Rose watched the Doctor become more and more on edge. Whenever she tried to call him out on it, the Doctor denied his agitation, but the furrowed brow and intense gaze said otherwise.

"Doctor, can't we just wait out the rain in one of these buildings?" Rose asked, motioning to the shops that they were passing, right outside of Inanna's city limits.

"No. We need to make it to the city." He gave no reason. Rose trusted his judgment; the Doctor always had his reasons for things, even if they didn't make much sense to others.

They finally entered Inanna. Rose looked around. The architecture was so bizarre, so alien-looking. Clusters of insanely tall, thin buildings covered the cityscape. Many were very ornate, very geometric, covered in large windows, and seeming to emphasize their own height, reminding strangely of late medieval architecture meeting art deco. Many of the buildings had fallen into disarray. Windows were broken, some of the ornamentations had fallen to the ground and been left there, and graffiti graced the walls.

She saw what should have been lights, what should have been glowing signs, what should have been advertisements, shop windows, large screens, streetlights and people's homes. They should have been glowing brightly. They weren't. There was no light coming from anywhere. It was still daytime, but it was supposed to be a huge, thriving city, and, as Rose learned from living in London, it could be the brightest, sunniest day, and there should still be lights.

More unnatural stillness. Even in the rain, there should have been some sort of sign of life. There were no people, no animals, no cars, no spaceships, nothing. Even the trees planted along the road in an attempt to liven up the area were dead. The streets were filthy, as if no one had swept them in years.

"Maybe they're just having a power outage…?" Rose offered. The Doctor shook his head and took out his sonic screwdriver, just for the sake of having its familiar weight in his hand.

"Nooo… Inanna is always clean, always. This city is famed for its beauty, and the inhabitants take great pride in it. The filth on the ground is indicator enough that something's not right." He crouched down and felt some of the dirt, rolling it between his fingers thoughtfully. He gave it a little taste "No, we couldn't have… But that's…. nooooo. Nooooo…" The Doctor dropped the dirt and wiped his fingers on his jacket. He turned to Rose in all seriousness. "Rose, we have to go back to the TARDIS. Now."

"But, Doctor! We just got here, and after walking all that way, too…" The look in the Doctor's eyes told Rose that there was no arguing with him. "Doctor? What's going on?" she asked, finding his behavior unnerving.

He looked out over the city, then back to her. "We have to leave now. Venus has been evacuated. This planet is about to undertake global resurfacing."

* * *

_Author's Note: Well, after a year-long hiatus, I'm back. Don't hate me too much. _

_For those who kept up with my Invader Zim fanfiction, _My Beloved, My Betrayed_, I apologize for leaving you hanging. No, I haven't given up on it. I've actually gotten half the next chapter written, but I can't promise when I finally finish it. This plot bunny's nagging at me so much that I just can't say no. _

_And before you ask, no, this will not turn into a Ten/Rose fic. Yes, there'll be some mild romantic elements between them, but nothing past what's cannon. Sorry to disappoint those looking for smut or fluff… okay, not really that sorry. It's my story, damnit. I write what I want!_


	2. Chapter 2

**The Melting Planet**

**Chapter 2**

"Do what?" asked Mickey, taking a sip of his tea.

"A global resurfacing event," stated the Doctor. "You've heard of plate tectonics, right?"

Mickey nodded, although, the look on his face said that he didn't like that the Doctor felt that he had to make sure that he had heard of such a basic concept.

"Good," said the Doctor with a nod of is own. He drank his tea and looked to Rose, as if asking if it were all right for him to take over. She smiled, knowing how he loved to talk. The Doctor beamed. "Now, as soon as I came to the realization of what was happening, Rose and I heard a loud noise…"

…

Rose gave a small jump, startled by the sound. By the time she recovered, the Doctor was already headed towards its source to investigate, clutching his sonic screwdriver.

The noise had originated in a nearby alleyway. As the Doctor turned the corner to find the source, he found himself face-to-face with a tall, muscular man. Three more were in the alleyway, two of which seemed to be kicking something in the corner, the other holding what appeared to be a wooden baseball bat. All, save for one of the men kicking the thing in the corner, turned to look at the Doctor.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your little powwow, but I heard a crash and, seeing as how naturally inquisitive I am, decided to find its source. So, what-chu hiding back there?"

The kicking man spat on his target before turning to face the Doctor…

…

"You never told me what a 'global resurfacing event' is," Mickey interjected.

"I know," said the Doctor, sipping his tea.

Mickey looked irate. Jackie just looked confused. "Well, aren't you gonna explain it to us? We can't all be genius 'time kings' like yourself," she said.

Rose gave the Doctor a look that said, '_are you seriously going to act this childishly?'_

The Doctor grinned sheepishly before he caved. "Like I said, plate tectonics. Earth is lucky – not all planets have it. Basically, as Earth's plates shift, the excess heat from its molten core is expelled. Venus, on the other hand, doesn't have shifting plates; it's all one large crust encasing the planet. Now, that heat needs to go somewhere, and because there's no way for it to vent, it can only build up. In essence, the heat increases and increases, eating away at the crust. Eventually, it gets so hot that the top layer of the crust begins to melt, turning the whole planet into one giant, magma-y mess. Once the surface is melted, the open air cools the planet until a new layer of crust is formed, thus repeating the process." He took another sip of tea. "And I'm a Time _Lord_, not king. That would just be silly."

"So the planet pretty much melts," Mickey rephrased.

The Doctor put his mug on the table. "In a sense, yes. Now, at that moment, I realized that the thing in the corner was, in fact, a man…"

…

With the last man having moved out of the way, the Doctor saw the bloodied form of the man shiver with silent sobs. Although he was curled up into a ball, the Doctor tried to examine his features. The man's nose was broken at an odd angle with blood pouring out. One eye, swollen shut, was encased in a deep purple bruise. Bruises, large and small, covered the rest of is body, as did cuts and scrapes. The man was breathing raggedly, but the Doctor couldn't tell if it was something was seriously injured or just from the trauma his body was going through.

He was tall – the Doctor guessed that he measured at six foot five. His head, a little too wide and square, was covered a in a mop of mousey-brown hair dripping wet from the drizzling rain. His eyes were a just little too large, his arms, a little too long. The Doctor could see that he wasn't completely human. Probably someone who immigrated to Inanna to escape the prejudices of Earth.

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire_…_" the Doctor found himself muttering. He fell silent for a short amount of time, the only audible sound being the pitter-patter of rain drops. The Doctor looked upon the four men with calm fury. "I don't know what this man has done to you, but I really can't condone the four of you beating him like this. I'd advise that you stop immediately and before I'm forced to take action."

The one who had spat on the man gave him another kick, then held out his hand. The man with the bat handed it over. He was obviously the leader. He walked towards the Doctor, a swagger in his step. "An' 'o are you to stop us?"

The Doctor twirled his sonic screwdriver. "Just someone passing through."

"Are you retar'ed or somefin'? Don't you know 'o you're dealin' wif'?"

The Doctor broke into a dark smile. "Noo, on the contrary, I don't think you know who you're 'dealin' wif'." Suddenly, he jumped backwards and aimed the screwdriver at the four, a high pitched buzzing being emitted from it. The four thugs put their hands to their ears, dropping to their knees in pain, hearing something that no one else could. The Doctor raced past them, grabbed the bloodied man by the hand and dragged him away before his four assailants could recover.

"What's going on?" asked Rose as he approached her on the main road.

"No time to explain. Just run." Without slowing, he grabbed her hand with his other one and dragged her with him, too.

The Doctor lead the other two into the nearest building. He pointed his sonic screwdriver at the handle to unlock it and pushed Rose and the man inside before going inside himself. He used the screwdriver then to lock the door again. They were in some sort of dark warehouse. One single, dirty window looked out to the outside world. After pocketing the screwdriver, he turned to the man, who had managed to put himself into the fetal position in a corner and somewhat hyperventilating, having difficulty catching his breath in such a sorry state. "Sorry to make you run like that while you're injured, but we're safe now. They won't be able to unlock that door. Are you alright?"

"What did you do to them?" he asked, his voice cracking with fear and pain.

"Eh, nothing much. I just amplified the sound of the rain pattering down on their heads with my sonic screwdriver. For them, it sounded like someone was playing a big kettledrum in their skulls. Painful, yes, but no permanent damage… Welllllll, not much. Maaaaybe a bit of hearing loss, but it shouldn't be _too, _too bad. Probably the equivalent of one of those rock concerts that you humans are so fond of…" The Doctor flashed the man one of his winning grins. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose Tyler. Now, is anything broken?"

"Who are you…?"

"I told you, I'm the Doctor."

"I'm not stupid… There haven't been any doctors here for nineteen years…" he said, wincing and holding his hand over his ribcage in pain.

"Nineteen years, eh?" the Doctor muttered under his breath. "Well, maybe you missed one. Besides, a man in your condition shouldn't be complaining if a mysterious doctor appears, should he? Now, do you think anything's broken, well, besides your nose, that is?" The Doctor pointed to the man's bloodied face, allowing Rose to notice that his nose was set at an unnatural angle.

"My chest – it hurts..."

"Let me take a look at it." The Doctor helped the man take off his shirt. He pulled a stethoscope out of his pocket and put it on, listening to the man's chest. The man let out a small gasp of pain when the Doctor put it on one area. Rose pulled him over before he could continue the examination.

"You're not a medical doctor! What are you doing?" she hissed under her breath.

"Relax, Rose. I know enough about human anatomy to be able to tell if something is broken or not." He turned back to the man. "Your organs seem fine. Now, this might hurt a bit, but I need to be able to feel your chest to see if you have a broken rib." The man nodded. The Doctor crouched down next to him proceeded place his fingertips along the man's ribcage, applying a small amount of pressure. A small yelp erupted from the man when the Doctor got to his left side. "Yup, definitely a crack here." He applied a bit more pressure on the rib underneath that one. The man bit his lip to keep from screaming in pain. Just to make sure, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and passed it over the poor man's ribcage. "Alright, make that two…"

The Doctor got up and gently helped the man back into his wet shirt, knowing that being half-naked in front of strangers probably would make most people uncomfortable. "Good news is that is that your ribs only have a fracture, not a complete break, so it'll heal on its own. The bad news is, there's going to be a bit of pain when you breathe for about a month and a half. As for your nose, unfortunately, I really don't have the tools to fix it. But I do have this…"

The Doctor rummaged through his pockets, pulling out all sorts of odds and ends – paper clips, rubber bands, a mitten, nuts, bolts, a pocket watch, his glasses, a bronze medal, a can of hairspray ("Don't judge," he said to Rose, "How else do you think I get my hair to stand up like this,") a banana, a plastic fish, a cassette with the words "Sarah Jane's Mix", coffee filters, several batteries, a spoon - before finding what he was looking for. A bandage. The Doctor peeled the wax paper off the back and stuck it across the bridge of the man's broken nose.

"What is that? A high-tech Time Lord bandage?" Rose questioned.

"Nope. Just a normal one."

"What good is that supposed to do, then?"

"Well, it _was_ supposed to be a placebo, but now that you've _ruined_ _it_…"

Despite his obvious pain, the man tried to stand up.

"Whoah! What are you doing?" The Doctor exclaimed, trying to get the man to sit back down.

"Thank you for you help… Doctor…" The man said the Doctor's name as if he still didn't fully believe that he was a real doctor, but he let it slide. "But I have a family… I need to get back."

Rose took the man's right arm - careful not to hurt the broken rib – and draped it around her shoulder, helping him up. "Not in your condition, you're not. You'll need someone to help you get there." She looked at the Doctor with eyes that said '_yes, we _are_ going to help him get back to his family. THEN we can go back to the TARDIS_.' "How far from here do you live, Mr…"

"Shields… Douglas Shields," he replied. "I live on Astrild Street…"

Rose looked to the Doctor, who gave her a shrug. "Um… I'm sorry, but you'll have to show us the way."

The Doctor peered out the window, having difficulty finding an area not covered in grime. Two of the four thugs, including the leader with his baseball bat, were in the street, looking for them. "Looks like we won't be able to go now; your little friends outside still look like they want to play." The Doctor moved away from the window, not wanting to be seen by them. "You aught to sit down, Douglas. We won't be leaving anytime soon, and, in your state, you need to rest.

Rose slowly helped him down and, gently, propped Douglas against a wall. "But we are taking him back to his home, Doctor." It was not a question, but a statement. Matter of fact.

"Of course, but we need to get back to the TARDIS immediately afterwards. It's not safe if we stay."

"It's not safe anywhere…" muttered Douglas.

"Pardon?' the Doctor asked.

Douglas looked at them strangely. "Who are you really?"

"What do you mean? We told you, I'm Rose, and this is the Doctor. " Rose replied, trying to make it sound as if that were answer enough.

Douglas's skeptical look didn't fade. "You two speak as if you have somewhere to go, but there's nothing left here, this one doesn't smell human, _and_ he claims to be a Doctor, and neither of you _act_ like you've been here since they left, which is impossible-"

The Doctor sat down against the wall, next to Douglas. "Since who left?" He inquired.

"Everyone..." Douglas gazed outwards, a dark look on his face as he relived painful memories. "Everyone who could...." He turned to look at the Doctor. "The rest of us… the ones without money, the homeless, they ones who didn't want to leave… we all got left behind…"

"And that was nineteen years ago…" the Doctor muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. He looked Douglas in the eye.

"Now, I need you to answer me a question, and I might seem a bit mad asking this, but bear with me. Your answer is very important." The Doctor took a deep breath. "This is the year 3774, isn't it?" Douglas looked at the Doctor, confused. The Doctor continued his intense stare. "I need to know. Are we, or are we not in the year 3774?"

"Yes, we are…"

The Doctor made an angry sigh-groan noise, putting his hands to his face and pulling them down slowly.

"I thought we were supposed to be in 3529, Doctor." Rose asked, studying the Doctor's face, trying to see if she could learn anything from it.

The Doctor sighed again before he stood up and angrily started to pace, his voice speeding up, speaking a mile-a-minute, complete with wild hand gestures. "We were. I had all the coordinates set and everything. I had even chosen that year because, if anything went wrong and we went to the wrong time period - even 100 years off- we wouldn't have to face the global resurfacing. But 245 years? 'Noooooo, Doctor! I don't want to fly where it's safe and you'll enjoy yourself! No, I'd much rather take you to the EXACT MOMENT when the planet starts to recycle all its crust and destroys EVERYTHING.' Does the TARDIS do this on purpose?"

Rose sat next to Douglas…

…

"Hold on, Doctor," Rose interjected, "You forgot a part."

"No I didn't," he immediately countered, almost too quickly.

"Yes you did." Rose continued where the Doctor left off...

…

The Doctor furiously kicked the wall, but immediately regretted it. Hopping up and down holding his foot, the Doctor winced. "Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!"

…

Mickey let out a snort of laughter, obviously feeling schadenfreude from the Doctor's hurt foot.

Rose tried to give him a dark look, but couldn't help breaking into a smile herself.

The Doctor frowned.

"What? It was pretty funny, in retrospect."

"But it hurt," said the Doctor, with a look that reminded Rose of a hurt puppy.

"And it was your own damn fault."

"Fine. _You_ tell the story," he said, reaching for his tea, sitting on the table.

"Maybe I will!" Rose proclaimed, playfully. "So, while the Doctor was hopping around like an idiot," he frowned, "I sat down near Douglas…"

…

Not knowing how to react to the Doctor's temper tantrum, Douglas turned to Rose, the less volatile of the two. "Who are the two of you?" he reiterated.

Rose glanced at the hopping Doctor before giving her attention to Douglas again. "I really don't know how to answer you. The easiest way, really, would be to say that, basically, we're just a couple of travelers who always end up in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"But you were talking about time, too…"

"Yeah… time travelers…"

Douglas looked at her, before giving a bitter laugh, wincing, as it hurt his fractured rib. "You're time travelers… You honestly expect me to believe that?"

"Well, I'm not going to make you believe me if you don't want to."

"So, this 'TARDIS' is your time machine, I take it?" Douglas's smug look showed that he obviously didn't think that she was telling the truth, but was going to play along anyway.

"Technically, it's the Doctor's; I just travel with him."

"Are the two of you…?"

…

Mickey looked at Rose with an intense and slightly hurt stare. Her mother gave a similar look. The Doctor looked oddly nonchalant – she couldn't tell what he was thinking. Rose mentally cursed. She hadn't meant to mention that part of the conversation – she just got too caught up in the storytelling.

"No. I told you – it's not like that," Rose stated. No one's expression changed. "Look, I even told Douglas…"

….

"No, of course not! He's not even human. It wouldn't work out."

Douglas narrowed his one eye that wasn't swollen shut. "Oh no, don't tell me - you're one of _them_…"

Rose straightened up, unsure what she was being accused of. "One of who?"

"A human elitist," he spat, acidity coating his voice, the effort visibly causing him some pain.

"What? No, I didn't mean it that way…"

"Certainly sounded like you did…"

Rose shut her mouth, unsure what to say.

Fortunately, the Doctor's foot had stopped hurting enough and his tantrum subsided enough for him to swoop to the rescue. "Rose didn't mean it like that. I'm sure she meant to say that, even if we _were_ a couple – which we're not – there are all sorts of fundamental differences between us, such as the simple fact that I'm nine hundred years old, and she's only nineteen – standard Earth years, of course. Then there's the hurdle of myself living much longer than her, basically unaging, while she would grow old, certainly making things a mite awkward, to say the least. Then there's the question of if we're genetically compatible, being able to create children and the like. But that's not an issue, as Rose and I are simply mates -" Looking at their expressions, the Doctor decided to change his word usage. "Friends. Chums. Buddies."

Rose nodded, although, looking a little dejected.

Under his breath, the Doctor muttered, "Why are things with humans always so complicated?"

Douglas continued to look at Rose warily.

"While we're on the topic, I've noticed you have a little mixed in, Douglas. If you don't mind me asking…?" The Doctor let his question trail off, no wanting to sound too insensitive.

Douglas looked to Rose once again before answering. "Raxacoricofallapatorian. My grandmother on my father's side."

"You mean a Slitheen?" Rose asked

Douglas looked affronted. "No, I do NOT mean the family Slitheen. Nan would NEVER have associated herself with a family of criminals like that."

Rose looked downwards, feeling inadequate – she just kept doing worse and worse by him.

"She didn't mean anything by it," the Doctor assured Douglas. "The only encounter with the Raxacoricofallapatorian race that Rose or I have had was with the Slitheen."

Douglas's breathing was becoming more labored from the effort put forth to talk. The Doctor noticed this. "You shouldn't speak anymore. Don't overexert yourself." He gave Rose a sharp look that said '_don't provoke him anymore, he's very hurt.'_

Rose frowned but kept her mouth shut. She looked out the window and quickly forgot her silent promise.

"Hey, Doctor, Douglas, I think they're gone."

* * *

A-ha! Some sort of semblance to a plot!

Many thanks to my one, lovely reviewer, , who also happened be my beta when I shoved my laptop into her face while we were supposed to be doing homework.

Anyway, critique and reviews are always greatly appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Melting Planet**

**Chapter 3**

Rose looked around, awestruck. She then looked back to Douglas, situated on the Doctor's back. "You live _here?!" _she exclaimed. Rose hadn't expected this – really, she hadn't known what she expected. A tiny one-bedroom flat ? A slum? A street corner, even? But not… THIS. "This is a penthouse! A bloody penthouse!"

The Doctor set Douglas down on a nearby sofa. Given the man's condition, the Doctor had had to carry him most of the way by way of piggyback. At least it had stopped raining, allowing them to have gone from sopping wet to only slightly damp.

"Now, where are the wife and kids?" the Doctor asked, mostly to himself, as he stretched his back. Funny, how sore one could get by carrying a man larger than himself for about a mile and then up many, many flights of stairs. Generally, the Doctor wasn't one to complain about having to go up stairs – he was certainly fit from all the running-for-his-life he did on a regular basis – but, just this once, he wished for an elevator. Naturally, it was out, just like everything else in the city. There was no power anywhere in Inanna, or anywhere on Venus, for that matter.

Rose looked out the nearest window. They were high up in one of the tall towers of Inanna, overlooking most of it. The sun hung low in the sky, but there was still light enough to see. Surveying the buildings, disconnected, the eerie stillness of the city didn't seem to bother Rose quite so much, although, the uneasiness was not completely gone. Looking out, past the city, Rose noticed a large, orangey patch of land dipping downward and undeveloped. She remembered passing through it with the Doctor and not seeing many buildings until they were close to the city. It hadn't seemed strange to her then, but seeing it from above, it was… off. This was a huge metropolitan area – outside of Inanna's official borders there were clusters of buildings on all sides. All except for one long strip of land.

She walked over to the Doctor. "I thought that Douglas was poor," she said, under her breath.

"Rose, you have to keep in mind; basically, this is a dying, if not already dead, society. Everyone of any sort of wealth already left. Everything is abandoned. Naturally, the people left behind wouldn't stay in the streets or in their cramped flats. Not when they have entire hotels, luxury flats, and mansions they could be staying in. It's more a matter of first-come, first-serve."

Rose nodded.

"Douglas?!"

Rose and the Doctor turned their heads to see a woman rushing out of a doorway. She was human, but with "a little mixed in," as the Doctor had described Douglas, earlier. (Rose assumed that this was a more politically correct way of saying human-alien hybrid.) Her skin was a pale olive greenish color – a color that seemed to be a perfect mixture of bright green and the pinky-peach of human skin, Rose mused. Small nubs covered the sides of her face and the back of her hands. The rest of her looked fairly normal. She was pretty, with shoulder-length deep brown hair, hazel eyes, and high cheekbones, but she carried the signs of the weight of the world seeming to catch up with her, shown through the dark bags under her eyes and traces of emerging worry-lines.

As she was about to give Douglas a large embrace, the Doctor intercepted.

"Careful! He has two broken ribs!" he said, stepping in her way. She walked around him but heeded his advice, grasping one of Douglas's hands instead of hugging him.

"I was so worried about you! When Driscoll's men came and took you yesterday, I thought that they might…" Her words trailed off as if saying it was too painful for her, eyes tearing up.

"I'm here, Kaia; I'm safe. I'm fine," Douglas said, squeezing her hand.

The woman, Kaia, wiped away her tears on her sleeve and attempted a smile. "Don't lie to me; you're not fine. Two of your ribs are broken," she said in a half-teasing, half-hurt way.

"Naw, I'm fine. The Doctor says they're merely fractured. I just look worse than I actually am. I'll be out and about soon enough."

"The Doctor?" she repeated. Her mood quickly changed from tearful relief to sharp anger as she turned to face the Doctor. "The Doctor. You told my husband that you're a doctor." Kaia glared. She marched over to the Doctor and stuck a finger in his face, almost brushing his nose. Her nostrils flared in anger as she spoke in a slow, low voice. "My husband is badly injured, and _you_ pretended to be a doctor."

It was at that moment that Rose and the Doctor decided that getting on the bad side of Kaia was probably a VERY bad idea. The Doctor backed up, hands in the air, showing that he had nothing to hide.

"I didn't tell him that I was _a_ doctor, I told him that I was _THE_ Doctor. It's not pretending," he clarified, as if that explained everything to her.

"_WHAT!?" _Kaia erupted, causing the Doctor to flinch. "What game are you playing at, '_The Doctor_?'"

"But he is!" Rose interrupted on the Doctor's behalf. "That's his name; he's the Doctor. And, in his defense, he _does_ know what he's doing." It took great restraint not to mutter "usually."

"Is that an elastoplast on his nose?!" Kaia asked, still very irate.

"Yes," the Doctor affirmed.

Kaia's glare intensified. "Doctor, my arse!" she declared, indignantly.

A small voice interrupted the tirade that she was, most inevitably, about to begin.

"Mummy, what's going on?"

A small boy, about the age of six, entered. It was obvious that Rose was trying not to stare at him, as he was very much Kaia and Douglas's child. The boy held a greenish tint to his skin, although, not nearly as pronounced as Kaia's, and the large eyes of Douglas. His arms and fingers looked slightly too long, too – another shared trait with his father. Although he didn't have the small nubs of Kaia, the boy seemed to have received most of his mother's delicate features and dark hair. One thing that was very obvious, despite his abnormalities, was that fact that he was very thin. Rose looked at Douglas and Kaia. Actually, all three were very thin, like they weren't eating enough.

The boy looked around the room in confusion before noticing Douglas upon the couch. His eyes lit up.

"DADDY!" he shouted as he ran towards his father. Kaia had to stop him before he leapt up and did any considerable damage.

"Allen, honey, Daddy's very hurt. You have to be gentle."

The little boy nodded, not fully understanding, but recognizing that his mum wanted him to careful with his father. He gave Douglas a soft squeeze, which obviously hurt the man, but he didn't make a sound.

Douglas smiled. "Hey, Big Boy, how've you been?"

"I lost my first tooth, Daddy! Look! Look!" Allen exclaimed, pulling up his upper lip to show his father the gap where an incisor once resided.

"I see!" Douglas declared with enthusiasm. "Did the tooth fairy leave you anything?"

"Uh huh! I got a piece of candy for it!" Allen shouted, puffing his chest out, proud of his acquisition.

"It was his first tooth. The tooth fairy thought that he deserved something special," Kaia said with a smile.

Rose turned to the Doctor. "They still have the tooth fairy in the future?" she whispered.

"Santa too, but somewhere around the 46th century they start calling him 'The Christmas Guy.' That one was a weird century. A lot of things ended up getting renamed. The Taj Mahal officially became called 'Big, White, Castle-y Thing In India.' The Statue of Liberty became "Big Green Lady with the Pointy Hat...' As you can guess, poetry suffered greatly."

"My mum used to leave me twenty pence under my pillow." Rose said, half-musing to herself.

"Different society, different values. There isn't much need to money, I would assume, seeing as how the planet is dying and the people know it, not to mention, it would be so difficult to regulate money because of the small, spread out population. There wouldn't be much of a need to buy things because so much was left behind when everyone left. No - food would be what's _really_ valuable, what-all-with Venus no longer able to support crops." Rose raised an eyebrow. The Doctor continued. "You saw all the dying plants out there, eh? It's because the ground has become too hot for them to grow. A sweet would be more precious than a pound, here. It was probably hard for her to obtain it, I'm sure."

"Why are you all hurt, Daddy?" Allen asked, looking his father over.

"That's what I want to know. What happened, Douglas? What did Driscoll's thugs do to you? And who is this 'the Doctor' and his girlfriend?" Kaia sent an accusatory glower in said doctor's general vicinity.

The Doctor opened his mouth, ready to correct Kaia about the "girlfriend" comment, but closed it. Frankly, Kaia was frightening, and it probably wasn't in his best interests to incite her fury any further.

"He's the Doctor, and her name is Rose Tyler. They tell me that they're time travelers," Douglas answered

Kaia pursed her lips, her green face turning slightly red with rage. This time, she focused it on her husband. "And you believe them?!"

He looked at the Doctor and Rose, then turned to his wife. "Of course not! They may be odd, but they're certainly not travelling through time."'

"Just who do you think you are, Doctor? And what kind of name is that? Doctor, what? Doctor, who?!" Kaia shrieked, directing her wrath towards the skinny, suited man.

"Just the Doctor. That's what Rose calls me; that's what my own people called me; that's what you'll call me," he stated, matter-of-fact.

"Oh, 'your people' – don't look down on us and talk about you precious pure-blood humans like you're so different." Rose looked at Kaia's seething face and could see, underneath the boiling anger, a look of pain, so etched in that it had become permanent. Kaia was a woman who had, her whole life, been beaten down because of her hybrid-status to the point where her only reaction had become anger.

…

"That's awfully insightful, Rose Tyler," the Doctor said, raising his eyebrows as he took a sip from his cuppa.

Rose smiled. The Doctor referred to her by her full name – he only did that when they were in danger, he was enraged, or he had thought her to have done something incredibly clever.

"I think you're beginning to rub off on me, Doctor."

"Can we please cut the couple-y stuff and get on with it?" interrupted Mickey.

Rose rolled her eyes, but continued.

"Fortunately, Douglas was able to tell her…"

…

"Actually, Kaia, hun, actually, I don't think that the Doctor might be human at all…" he trailed off, letting his wife simmer down before he continued. "He doesn't smell like one in the least, and Rose mentioned that he wasn't, as well."

Kaia looked at him, skeptical. "And how can you smell anything with your nose like that?"

"Everything's faint, but I can smell enough, and, frankly, I've never met _anything_ that smells like him."

Allen ran up to the Doctor and took an exaggerated sniff. "Daddy's right! You smell weird!"

"I think it's time you that left the room." Kaia told her son, putting extra stress on each word, letting him know that she was serious. The boy nodded before obliging.

Trying to lighten the mood, Rose whispered in the Doctor's ear. "I told you that you needed to get that suit dry-cleaned…"

A long silence followed.

Douglas spoke up. "I'm noticing that you referred to 'your people' in the past tense."

"Oh, no. Don't provoke him!" Kaia snapped.

"I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor stated. "The last of the Time Lords. I watched Gallifrey burn, and I saw armies of my race slaughtered. I fought in the Time War and emerged as the only survivor. My race is gone, but for me."

"A Time Lord? Honestly? Like from fairy tales? You can't possibly believe him, Douglas! He's crazy! He's a compulsive liar. They're _both_ compulsive liars. What are they still doing in our house?!"

Doctor tensed up; Kaia had stuck a nerve.

"There are here," the wounded man on the sofa said, "because this man saved my life. Four of Driscoll's thugs were ready to beat me to death, but the Doctor swooped in with his sonic… thing… and rescued me. He then did his best to help my wounds and kept me safe from them until they left. Then, he carried me for about a mile to get here, despite the fact that I probably weigh much more than he does and, at that point, he had no obligation to. THAT is why he is still in our house…" Douglas winced and gave a grunt of pain. He had overexerted himself again, and his breathing was becoming very shallow…

…

"Then it gets very technical. I'll let the Doctor continue." Rose said.

"It wasn't 'technical,'" replied the Doctor, adding little air quotes with his fingers.

"Well, I certainly didn't know what was happening. Basically, I just stood against the wall and looked confused while you played M.D."

"Alright. Fine. Anyway, so I told Kaia, – "

"Hold on, HOLD ON!" said Jackie, interrupting the Doctor. "What was that about Time Lords and fairy tales? I've certainly never heard of any fairy tales about aliens."

"Well, of course _you_ haven't. Besides me, the Time Lords left Earth pretty much alone. Personally, I think you lot are brilliant, but for the most part, the rest of the Time Lords thought humans insignificant. _Sooo_ much farther below them." Jackie frowned and crossed her arms, taking personal offense. "But Kaia was talking about the equivalent of fairy tales from _other_ races, ones that had, at one point, had relations with the Time Lords. The stories got passed around through interactions between other races which begat more interactions, and so on, and so on. Eventually, most of the Universe began to see the Time Lords as myths and legends; a race of god-like entities with absolute power over time and space. Judging by her appearance, Kaia probably was half Vinvocci, a race that had developed space travel several thousands of years before Earth did. She was more than likely raised on stories of Snow White, Mother Goose, Rassilon, and the Time War."

"Are you in any of these fairy tales?" asked Rose, half-jokingly.

"Yes," the Doctor replied, curtly, obviously not wanting to go into that topic. "ANYWAY, seeing as how Douglas was in a bit of agony from his fractured ribs…"

…

"Kaia, get me some adhesive tape, a cold compress, and any sort of pain medication you may have!" the Doctor barked.

"Hold up, now! Just who do you think you are, yelling at me like-"

"Your husband is injured and in pain, and I'm the only one who can do anything to help him. That's the man I think I am! Now, get it for me!"

Kaia looked daggers at the Doctor, but then turned to her husband, his breathing labored. Her face softened, seeing him suffer like that.

"Alright," she said, face hardening once more, "but you better be able to help him." And with that, Kaia left the room.

The Doctor walked over to the couch where Douglas lay and kneeled down so that he was eye level with the man.

"Alright, Douglas, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry; I know you're going to hate me for this, but I need you to take the biggest breath you can." The Doctor took a large breath, trying to coax Douglas to do the same. "The very biggest you can force yourself to take. It's going to hurt, but you need the air. You need to do this every hour, too. If you don't, down the road, you could develop pneumonia, and without any other doctors around here besides me, you'd be more or less out of luck if that happens. So breathe deeply for me." The Doctor took a couple more deep breaths, looking expectantly at Douglas.

Douglas inhaled deeply, tears welling up in his eyes from the force pushed upon his poor fractured ribs as he struggled not to cry out.

"Excellent! _Molto bene_. Like I said, big breath, every hour, and WHERE IS THAT TAPE?!" The Doctor shouted over his shoulder.

"I'm coming!" Kaia shouted back, entering the room again, a roll of masking tape in one hand, a bottle of ibuprofin in the other. She handed both to the Doctor. He opened the bottle, took a whiff, then threw it over his shoulder.

"S'no good! It's expired!" he exclaimed.

"That generally happens when your planet has been abandoned for _nineteen years_." Kaia retorted. "That bottle's been in this building since before we came."

"Then why'd you bloody bring it!?"

"Because you asked for a painkiller!"

"Well, then. What about the cold compress!?"

"No electricity, no running water. That means no ice, _Doctor_!"

The Doctor looked away and muttered something under his breath before turning to Kaia again. "Fine. At least you have tape. Now, watch carefully, because you're going to have to know how do this yourself when Rose and I leave."

He took a long strip of tape, about two feet in length. "Douglas, you're not going to like this, either, but I need you to sit up." The man obliged, but is obviously was not an easy feat. Kaia took his hands and pulled, making it easier on her husband.

The Doctor continued. "Now, I'm about to stabilize his rib. I'd advise that you don't do this often, as it can restrict his breathing. As I explained to your husband, there's a chance that he can catch pneumonia, and restricted airflow only increases those chances. So, only do this when he's in serious pain. If you take any information out of this, it should be this: pneumonia – bad. Any questions? Good."

The Time Lord took the strip of tape and put one end on one of the broken ribs, and wrapped it around Douglas's body until it reached his spinal cord. He did the same with four more tape strips.

"There. That should do it," said the Doctor, stepping back and admiring his handiwork before helping Douglas lay back down. "Kaia, when you have to do this, make sure that you only keep the tape on one side and don't wrap Douglas's chest entirely, as that will undoubtedly hamper his ability to breathe deeply."

The Doctor turned to the hurt man. "How are you feeling?"

"A little better… Doctor… Still feeling a lot of pain…" Douglas said through clenched teeth.

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to bear it unless we can get something to help with that pain."

The Doctor fixed his attention on Kaia again. "You wouldn't have any non-expired olive oil, would you?" She gave the Doctor an acidic look. "No… didn't think so… Probably not any tart cherries, either... Think, think… The ground's heating up, crops are dead, nothing's fresh…" He tapped his index fingers against his temples. "Come oooon… Think! Nineteen years, nineteen years – what hasn't expired and could act as a natural pain-killer?"

Rose, not having said anything, piped up. "We've got painkillers and ice in the TARDIS. You said that we needed to go back soon, anyway, Doctor. Once we get to it, we can fly it back here."

"Excellent idea, Rose Tyler. It'll be dark by the time we arrive, but that shouldn't be a problem – I can sense where it is. We can follow that."

"If you don't mind my asking, what is this 'TARDIS?'" Kaia questioned.

"My time machine," the Doctor replied, bluntly.

Kaia rolled her eyes. "No. I'm not buying it. I'll admit, you do seem to have some medical knowledge, Doctor – you might not even be a quack – but I refuse to believe that you have a time machine."

"Why, thank you. As that's probably the best compliment you'll give me, I'm deeply touched," he said, flashing a cheeky smile.

"So, which way is it?" Rose asked, obviously trying to change the subject before Kaia blew up again.

"Over in that direction," said the Doctor, motioning towards the window.

He walked over to it and looked out, surveying the land that they'd have to travel. "That's not good…" he said with gravity.

"What's wrong?" Rose didn't like that tone. The Doctor generally only used it when something very bad was about to happen.

He pointed to the empty patch of land. "You see that color? It wasn't that orange when we walked over it."

"So, what does that mean, Doctor?"

"It means that we're going to have to walk very quickly – maybe even have to do some running – Rose Tyler. The surface is heating up much faster than I had anticipated." He started walking towards the door, ushering Rose ahead of him.

"Thank you for your hospitality. Sorry we couldn't stay longer, but I really need to get my ship before your planet destroys it. We'll be back with some painkillers as soon as we can, so don't be surprised if a big blue box suddenly appears in your living room. Douglas, get some sleep if you can. Rest is good. Kaia, you make sure he does." And, with that, the Doctor walked out the door, shut it, grabbed Rose's hand, and, with a sense of desperation that he had kept hidden in the flat, flew down thirty-six flights of stairs with bottomless energy.

…

The Doctor paused to leisurely sip his tea.

"Well, what happened next?' inquired Mickey impatiently, obviously into the tale.

"Exactly what I had promised Rose, lots of quick walking and a some running."

"What I'm sure the Doctor _means_ to say is that we went as quickly as we could, but when we got midway…"

…

Rose wiped her brow, the sweat rolling down in fat drops. If she was this miserable in her t-shirt, she could only imagine what the Doctor was going through – always wearing that brown suit of his. Looking at the night sky, Rose couldn't even enjoy the stars as there was still cloud coverage. Rose decided that she would have preferred the rain to this stifling heat, any day.

"I don't remember it being this hot," she grumbled, picking up her feet, as they appeared to be sticking to the ground. Bloody sticky ground again.

"That's because it wasn't, earlier." the Doctor responded. "The magma is closer to the surface here than it is in the city. The ground here is lower and of a different consistency of dirt elsewhere."

"Any reason for that?"

"If I had to make a guess, judging by how nothing is built here and how this empty land just keeps going, I'd say that we're in a dried up riverbed."

"So why's it dried up?" Rose asked, anything to keep her mind off the feeling of the sweat dripping down her back.

"The heat, of course. It all evaporated, like a pot of water on a stove, with the crust basically acting as the pot and the magma as the burner… Well, not exactly. When you're cooking, pots shouldn't melt. Good ones, at least."

Rose smiled. "As if _you_ know anything about cooking, Mister I-Don't-Do-Domestic."

The Doctor pretended to be affronted. "As a matter of fact, I do. I understand the science behind it." Rose flashed him an amused look and a raised eyebrow, showing that she wasn't impressed. The Doctor continued. "AAAAND, I've used the microwave at your house."

She snorted. "You tried to cook cold cereal!"

"I wanted it warm! Warm cereal!"

"It caught fire!"

The Doctor tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Yeaaaah… I'm not sure how I managed to do that either.

…

"I had to get a new microwave, Doctor."

"I told you, I was sorry, Jackie," the Doctor said, crossing his arms

"Do you know what a new microwave costs?!" Jackie nagged.

He turned his head and looked at the wall, pretending that it was more interesting than Jackie's badgering. Actually, he didn't really have to pretend, it probably was. "No, but I get the feeling that you're going to tell me, regardless…"

"Ninety Pounds." Jackie enunciated every syllable.

"Lay off him, Mum! That was ages ago, and he said he was sorry." Rose urged.

"Ages ago for time travelers, perhaps. For us, that was only three weeks."

"Mum, if you're looking for us to pay you back…"

"I know, I know. Neither of you have money -"

"Actually, I have some credits from the planet Jiangyin in the year 2517," the Doctor interjected.

Rose threw a sharp look at him that told him _'now is not the time, Doctor._'

"Look, Mum, if you want us to come up with the money, then we can come up with it. I'm sure I have ninety quid in the bank."

"No, no. It's fine. You'll need that money when you finally come to your senses and come home for good. I just want you to keep the Doctor away from my appliances."

Rose's eyes flicked over to the Doctor, who was obviously not happy about the entire exchange, then flicked over at her mother, who wasn't very happy in general. She sighed. "Yes, Mum. I'll be the only one to touch the microwave."

"And the oven?"

"And the oven…"

"And the telly?"

The Doctor protested. "Hey! I can work the telly just fi-"

"And the telly…" Rose sighed.

"And the computer?"

Rose had a quick look at the Doctor again. He was seething. "I can't promise that he'll stay away from the computer, Mum."

Jackie Tyler momentarily looked from the Time Lord to her daughter. "Fine. He can touch the computer," she said with defeat. "But, if you mess it up, then _you'll_ have to be paying for it, Doctor, _not Rose_. You got that?"

"Loud and clear," the Doctor responded, a bit of a smile playing on his lips. He was still angry, but he didn't want to give Jackie the satisfaction of feeling like she was in control of him.

"That's all nice and all, but what happened next?" Mickey asked anticipatorily.

"Oh, right! So, eventually, while the Doctor and I were walking and chatting, the stickiness of the ground started becoming more and more obvious…"

…

"Since you're full of science, Doctor, tell me; why do my shoes feel like someone's trying to paste them to the dirt? It's getting really annoying."

The Doctor started speeding up his pace, walking in front of her, trying to ignore her question.

"Doctor? Helloooo? Why are you avoiding me?" Rose pestered, quickening her pace to match his.

Continuing to look forward, the Doctor told her, "Rose, I'm really not sure how to tell you this, so I'm going to say it bluntly." He inhaled sharply. "The ground's not sticky… That's the rubber on the bottom of your shoes melting. The TARDIS increased the resistance of your shoes back when you had left them in the wardrobe, which is why you're not feeling the heat of the dirt in your feet. But, trust me, the ground here is very, very, incredibly hot." Suddenly, before Rose could rant and rave about how much she liked these shoes, and that now they were more-or-less ruined, the Doctor threw out his hand and came to a halt.

Rose felt a wave of heat wash over her and the ground under her begin to sink slightly, almost like standing wet dirt instead of the dry, solid earth. She looked outwards in the direction of the Doctor's gaze. It was dark, but she could easily see glowing veins of red and orange in the expanse of land before her.

And then, the Doctor let out the longest string of curses that she had ever heard, all while leading her into another sprint in the direction that they had just came.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Melting Planet**

**Chapter 4**

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Kaia Shields groggily shouted after a series of knocks on the door. She opened the door to a very weary Rose and the Doctor.

"Hello again, Kaia." The Doctor smiled, panting. "I seemed to have misplaced my TARDIS."

Kaia groaned. "Come in…" she said, unenthusiastically. The green woman was dressed in an oversized t-shirt and had obviously been woken by the Doctor's loud knocking.

The Doctor and Rose entered the large flat. Douglas, now sleeping, hadn't moved from the couch. Rose noticed that the tape that the Doctor had used to stabilize his ribs was gone. She guessed that Kaia had taken it off when her husband fell asleep.

"The guest bedrooms are down the hall, take a right, first door on the right," Kaia said, assuming (correctly) that the two needed somewhere to spend the night.

"Thanks," Rose said, graciously, before heading down the hallway.

The Doctor began to leave in that direction, but Kaia grabbed the Time Lord's necktie, freeing it from underneath his jacket and almost choking him in the process.

"Not you," she said.

…

The Doctor, not missing a beat, and always happy to talk about himself, took advantage of Rose's temporary pause and began.

"Kaia motioned for me to sit down on the second couch in the room and let go of my tie. With her voice low, so as not to wake Douglas, she told me… What?"

Rose pouted.

"Whaaat?" the Doctor repeated.

Her lower lip quivered.

The Doctor turned away, so as he didn't have to see his human companion's pathetic stare. Normally she could manipulate him this way, normally. But not today; there was an audience.

"Nope!" he said, "I'm not falling for it. You've talked long enough, Rose Tyler. Now it's my turn."

He turned his head back around, hoping that she had dropped the playful pout, only to see that the puppy-dog eyes had intensified.

"Oy! Come off it!" he gave her a shove, just strong enough for her to lose her balance as well as her pouting concentration.

Jackie and Mickey stayed quiet, and looked to each other, both feeling like outsiders in this little exchange.

"Hey, what was that for?" Rose quipped, with a nudge of her own.

The Doctor carefully raised his tea above his head as soon as he saw Rose's elbow make its way towards his ribs in an attempt not to splash it everywhere. "_You_ weren't even there," he said. "You'd gone off to bed, for goodness sake! C'mon – let me tell it!"

"For nine hundred years old, you can be so childish, Doctor."

He smiled. "Aren't I? Anyway, as I was saying, Kaia, after assaulting my tie, told me…"

…

"Now, Doctor, I want answers, and don't give me fairy tales. What is going on?"

"I'm not sure what you're talking abou-"

Kaia cut him short. "I'm not stupid. For the past four hours, while the two of you have been gone, I've had time to think, and I've come to the conclusion that either both you and Rose are completely delusional and happen to suffer from the exact same delusions, or that you're not from here - from Venus, that is," she whispered, correcting herself.

"Now, no one's come since everyone left, so my initial thought was that you're a nutter. But, although you might be a bit mad, Doctor, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. I don't think you insane. So, as crazy as it sounds, that means that you have to be from elsewhere. So why? Why would you come to a dead planet? What purpose could your visit possibly serve?"

"Kaia, I'm not sure what you think we're here for, but I haven't lied to you. Rose and I came to Venus because I just wanted to take Rose to see Inanna in its prime. My TARDIS is a little temperamental, so it missed the time period by two hundred forty-five years and put us here."

Kaia gave him a disapproving glare.

The Doctor ran his hands through his thick hair, wracking his enormous brain. "What can I do to prove to you that I'm telling the truth?"

"That you're a Time Lord?"

"Yes, that and the fact that Rose and myself being here is just an accident caused by a moody time machine."

"I'm beginning to reconsider what I told you about you not being crazy."

The Doctor cradled his face in his hands and stared straight ahead, allowing the exhaustion of the day to finally catch up with him. "Look, Kaia, I'm sorry you don't believe me. I know that time travel and the like can be a bit difficult to accept, but, frankly, that's the only answer that you're going to get. I'm not much in the mood to make up some elaborate – and, understandably, more believable – lie to placate you."

"Well, can you tell me this, Doctor – what's going to happen to the planet? You said that the global resurfacing had already begun. You have to know _something_…"

The Doctor glanced into Kaia's eyes, expecting to see anger, but all he could see was pleading helplessness.

He exhaled. "What day is it?"

…

"My turn," Rose said, interrupting the Doctor.

"Hey! I was in the middle of talking!"

"And, earlier, I was too."

The Doctor crossed his arms, not seeing anyway out of it. She was just doing this to get back at him for interrupting her. And she had called _him_ childish!

"I was walking down the hallway where Kaia had pointed me…"

…

Rose took in her surroundings as she walked down the corridor. The high ceilings, the rich, wooden doors, and the art on the walls – the penthouse seemed so extravagant.

"Blimey…" she found herself muttering under her breath. "And this is just one flat?"

All of the doors were shut. Rose had to resist the urge to poke her head in and look around – Kaia and Douglas were going out of their way to let them stay; she didn't want to seem rude.

The hall made a turn, and Rose followed it. She stopped at the two doors across from each other

"Alright," she mused aloud, "Kaia said to first take a right… now, was it the door on the right or the left?"

Figuring that her chances were fifty-fifty, Rose entered the door to the left.

…

"No one cares about doors!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"I care about doors!" Jacked retorted, just wanting an excuse to take Rose's side against the Doctor.

"What?" the Doctor asked, a look of pure confusion on his face.

"You see,_ Mum_ cares about doors!" Rose said.

"Um… I think doors are nice, too," said Mickey, not wanting to be left out.

"_What?"_

"_Mickey_ thinks doors are nice, too!" Rose reiterated. "You seem to be the only one who doesn't seem to like doors here, Doctor."

"Are we _really_ having this conversation? _Doors?_ Seriously? _Seriously?_ So, I cut you off. And you're getting back at me with _doors?"_

"Fine, then, you can continue talking about arguing with Kaia about if you're a Time Lord or not. Again."

"I had asked her about the _day_… oh, forget it_…"_

…

"What?"

"Just answer me. The date?"

"Don't order me around! You _are_ a guest in my house, after all." Kaia sharply reminded the Doctor.

"Sorry. I've just had a bad day. A _VERY._ Bad. Day," he told her, with a sigh.

"Story of my life…" she muttered.

There was a pause.

"The date?" the Doctor asked again.

"August twenty-second." Kaia paused before adding, "3774."

The Doctor closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to control himself from any explosive outbursts. He didn't want to wake Douglas, still sleeping on the other sofa.

"That's not a good thing, is it?" Kaia asked

He took his time before answering her, gathering his thoughts. "No, it's not. I'd tell you to get your family out as quickly as you can, but, honestly, there's nowhere else to go."

"What do you mean, Doctor?"

"I'm afraid that I can't tell you. It's all very much wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff that I shouldn't be interfering with." Despite the goofy phrase, he spoke with the utmost solemnity.

"Because you're a Time Lord, right?" she said sarcastically.

"Because I'm a Time Lord," he confirmed. "And, if I get my TARDIS back in time, I'll see what I can do to save you and your family."

"Are you still going on about that imaginary time machine of yours? I get it. It's your ship. You don't need to call it silly names."

The Doctor tried to change the subject. "So, those men beating your husband when I found him - why, and who are they, anyway."

Kaia sighed, happy, herself, to change the focus of the conversation. "A couple of Driscoll's thugs. We were unable to pay back what we owed him, which he didn't think too kindly of."

"Pay him back… I'm assuming that you mean food, correct?"

"It's the only thing worth trading, here."

"Too true," the Doctor replied. "And this 'Driscoll,' he is…?"

The green woman folded her arms. "You haven't given me any useful information. Why should I volunteer anymore, myself?"

The Gallifreyan's nostrils flared in annoyance. Still, part of him had to commend the woman on her stubbornness. "Kaia, what do you need me to do to prove to you that I'm telling the truth?"

"Well, telling me the actual truth would be nice for starters."

The Doctor sat in silence for a moment before grabbing one of Kaia's hands. "I need this."

"Hey! Let go of me!" she cried, pulling her hand back. Her loud outburst caused Douglas to toss over in his sleep, but he didn't awaken.

"May I _please_ have your hand?" the Doctor urged. Kaia paused, but then presented it unenthusiastically. He held the hand against his neck, right at the pulse.

"I don't get the point of… this…" Kaia's eyes widened with realization and she counted the throbs.

"Ohhhhh yes," the Doctor said slowly with a hint of a smile playing on his lips. "I'm guessing that your myths and legends of Time Lords spoke of our binary vascular system?"

…

"See – here we are again. Admit it; you just like people's reactions when you tell them that you're a Time Lord."

The Doctor grumbled.

Jackie spoke. "So, what was behind the door, Rose?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. Bloody doors!

Rose spoke. "So, I opened the door…"

…

"Mummy?" a small voice called out from the darkness in the bedroom.

The expanse of the room was immense. I was dark, so Rose couldn't see very well, but what she did see – the large, canopied bed, ornate furniture, wide window, high ceiling, _chandelier_ – was impressive.

"Mummy? Is that you?" the voice called out again.

"No… Sorry, I'll just be going…"

"No! Wait – don't go!"

Rose heard the striking of a match and saw a small lantern located on the nightstand light up. The fire revealed the face of Kaia and Douglas's son.

"You're that woman who helped that other guy take care of my dad," he said.

"Yeah. And you're name is Allen, right?" The boy nodded. "I'm Rose Tyler," Rose said, and she walked towards and sat on the bed. She couldn't help but notice how ridiculous the small boy looked, so tiny, swimming through the large expanse of blankets and pillows.

"I'm not fully human. You don't hate me, do you?" Allen said, tentatively.

"Of course not. What gave you the idea that it would be?"

"I overheard Mummy and Daddy talking, and Dad said that he didn't think that you liked people who were only part human very much."

"Your dad and I had a misunderstanding; he didn't understand what I meant when I said something and it hurt his feelings. That's all."

Allen nodded, glad that Rose didn't hate him.

They sat in awkward silence for a while before Rose broke it.

"So, what's bothering you, Allen?"

"Outside," he said, pointing to the massive window. "The ground out there is glowing. I don't like it."

"Do you want me to close the curtains for you?" Rose asked. Allen nodded. Rose got up from the bed and grabbed one of the large, heavy drapes, pulling it until it got midway. She grabbed the other, but paused to look outside. It was overlooking a different area than the one she had seen from the window in the other room, but, still, she could see distant veins of orange-red flowing through the ground. She sighed as she pulled the curtain shut.

Rose turned back to face Allen. "There we go! Problem solved!"

Allen stayed silent.

"What?" Rose asked.

"That's lava out there, isn't it?"

Now it was Rose's turn to be silent.

"That's what it is, isn't it? Mummy and Daddy won't say, but it is. That's why everything's been getting hotter."

Rose didn't know what to say – the boy's parents obviously didn't want him to know, but she didn't want to lie to him, either. "Allen…"

"That man you were with, Mummy thinks that he's a nutter, but he said that he was a Time Lord. I heard – I was listening in the other room. Is he really, Ms. Rose?"

"The Doctor? Yeah, he is. And it's just 'Rose,' I don't need a 'Ms.' attached."

"Is he really a doctor, too?"

"Actually, I'm not sure about that, but I'm sure he's a doctor of something."

"Are you a Time Lord too?" the boy looked at her with rapt wonder. Doctors and Time Lords – something entirely new and exciting.

"No, I'm human."

"Are you a doctor, then?"

"No. I used to work in a shop."

"Did the Doctor ever work in a shop?"

"Probably not. I couldn't imagine him doing anything else besides travelling the universe."

"Do you go with him?"

"Everywhere."

"Do you like it?"

"I love it!"

"Does he really have a time machine?"

"The best! It's called the TARDIS."

"What does it look like?"

"It's a small blue box, but the inside is bigger than the outside, and it's enormous."

"Why-"

"I think that's enough questions, Allen." Rose said, beginning to wonder in the child's deluge would ever end.

"Are you and the Doctor going to save us?"

Rose stared at him. "What?"

"From the lava. When Mummy tells me bedtime stories, shs said that the Time Lords are supposed to be able to do anything with so much science, it's like magic. Can the Doctor do that? The lava wasn't like that last night. It's getting bigger. I asked Mummy was going on, and she said that it's nothing to worry about, but I can tell – she's worried. She's been worried about something for a while, even before those men took Daddy and we had to move here."

"What do you mean, 'we had to move here?'"

"After Daddy was taken, Mummy said that it wasn't safe back home. She and some other people helped move everything important here. Mummy told me that when Daddy gets away from the scary men, that he'd know to come here, and that it's a big city, so they would have trouble finding us here. It was scary, though."

"Do you know anything about the guys who took your father, Allen?"

"I know that he's a bad man and we don't like him."

"Anything else?"

The boy shook his head.

"Well, you can't see the lava anymore, so do you think you can get some sleep?" Rose asked.

"Yeah," said Allen.

"Need me to tuck you in?" Rose asked. Allen nodded, and Rose proceeded to make sure that the blankets were secure around his small form.

She blew out the candle in the lantern and patted him on the head.

"Goodnight, Allen." She said, tiptoeing to the door.

"Rose?"

"Yes?"

"Will you be able to save us?"

Rose paused, unsure what to say. Eventually, she found the words. "Yes. The Doctor and I will do everything we can to make sure you and your family is safe." As she said them, a feeling of definitiveness settled in her. Yes, they would find a way to help them.

"Good…"

"G'night," Rose said, slowly closing the door and going to the guest bedroom across the hall…

…

Rose looked to the Doctor, who simply rolled his eyes again.

"_Anyway_," he said, "Back to where I was. Kaia had placed her hand at my pulse…"

…

She felt those steady four throbs for a few more seconds before snatching back her hand.

"No. That can't be right. You... You have to be something else. There has to be something else out there with two hearts… Or maybe you have a misshapen heart… That could happen! Just some sort of mutation… That's just… You're just… You can't be!"

The Doctor thrust his hand in his coat pocket and pulled out his stethoscope. He held the earpieces apart. "May I?"

Kaia nodded, and the Doctor slipped it onto her head. He grasped the other end and held it to his chest, starting on the left side and moving it to the right, lingering slightly on each individual heart.

"_They_ are not misshapen," he assured her, emphasizing that there was more than one.

"Th-then you have to be something else. You can't be from Gallifrey, you just can't!"

"And why can't I?"

"Because!" she said, frustrated, "It doesn't exist! Just like elves don't exist, or ghosts, or the Loch Ness Monster!"

"Oh, that last one did. Plesiosaur. Dropped in the lake by a temporal rift back in the 1930's."

Kaia bit her lip to keep from screaming in exasperation, anger, and confusion. "So what else is real?" she said, straining not to raise her voice and wake her wounded husband.

"Mmm… pretty much just Gallifrey and the Loch Ness Monster… And fairies… Werewolves too... The Yeti was just a robot… Vampires are a conglomeration of different alien species that feed off of blood… We faced something like ghosts once, but they turned out to be creatures with no bodies coming through the Cardiff rift…" He paused. "I'm really not helping, am I?"

Kaia sat in silence and bit at her thumb, thinking. Finally, she spoke. "So this whole time, you were telling the truth…"

The Doctor nodded.

Kaia paused again before taking a deep breath and exhaling heavily. "You know, that would be my luck. Just. My. Luck." A bitter smile grew on her lips, but her eyes stayed the same – hurt. "We had thought – hoped – that you two were from a rescue party, here to take us – the survivors – away… or at least to just see if anyone was left… But what do I get? _A couple of make-believe creatures with technical difficulties_." She spat the last phrase out, as if it was bitter on her tongue. Tears welled up in her eyes, making it evident to the Doctor that this notion really was her last hope.

The Doctor hunched to be eye level with the shorter woman, and put his hands on her shoulders. "Kaia, I promise you. When I get to my TARDIS, I'll save you and your family." He spoke with absolute certainty.

She smiled; the motion causing the welling tears to slide down her cheeks. The small grin was short-lived. "Where is it, this TARDIS? Why couldn't you get to it earlier?"

The Doctor slid his hands from her shoulders and stood up. "Oh, she's out there; I can feel it. It's a symbiotic relationship, the one between a Time Lord and a TARDIS. She's not hurt, I know that much." He walked towards the window. In the inky darkness of night, his eyes could make out traces of red over where the dried up river was. "Getting to her – that there's the problem. The magma's already reached the surface, blocking my way there."

"So, what do you plan to do?"

He turned away from the window, the sight making him even more depressed than he already was. "I'm not sure. I'll think of something. I always do."

There was silence. The Doctor broke into feigned enthusiasm.

"So! Driscoll! Who is he? Local food dealer? Robber baron? Crime Lord? All of the above?"

"The last one," she confirmed. "A couple years after the mass evacuation, Leo Driscoll managed to round up all the thugs who were left behind and made pretty much the closest thing to an organized crime syndicate that we have here. He sent his men to raid all the food storages and pretty much everywhere else that might have canned goods. There were a few people who moved to the country to try to grow crops, but part of the reason why everyone evacuated was because nothing would grow, so that ended up a failure. Slowly, he became the sole source of food distribution.

"When everyone else began to realize how much power he was gaining control of, most of the people tried creating a make-shift government to stop him and redistribute the power– hell – we even had a quite a few of us half-breeds put our support behind Douglas as representative for all sub-human interests."

"Sub-human." The Doctor said the word as if it were a bad taste in his mouth before saying what he wanted to say. "So, I'm guessing that Driscoll managed to destroy the fledgling government, then… Now, you're the one not telling _me_ everything."

"What to you mean by that?"

The Doctor smiled – he always enjoyed playing detective. "Well, let's see – when I found your husband, he was being beaten to death. You say it's because he owed Driscoll, which, in most situations, could be plausible, although, makes me question _how much_ he borrowed. After all; if all of Inanna – I'm assuming that most of this is going on in Inanna and not so much on a global scale. I could imagine that with the crippling heat and no source of communication or transportation, interaction between the different areas of Venus would be limited, correct?"

Kaia nodded. "We've had limited interaction with the city of Freya. Driscoll's influence has stretched there as well, though. Beside that, for the most part, anything that's not on the Beta Regio is out of touch. Beta Regio – that's this region of land, right here."

"I'm over 900 standard earth years, Kaia; I know my geography of planets well enough, but I get what you're saying."

"You're that old?"

"And I've lived so many lives."

He clapped his hands together in subject change, albeit, quietly, so as not to wake the sleeping man. "Right! So, if all of Inanna is having to get food from Driscoll, and no one else has food of their own, then why you? Why would he go after your family? Is it because this Driscoll fellow still has a grudge against your husband with the attempted government all those years ago, or is it something else?" He raised his eyebrows, that goofy grin still on his face.

"What do you mean?"

"A rebellion, perhaps."

"Are you implying that my husband is leading a rebellion?"

The Time Lord continued grinning. "No, I wasn't. I was implying that he was a _member_. YOU just volunteered that he's leading it."

Kaia bit her lip, not knowing what to say. The Doctor filled in the silence for her.

"But Leo Driscoll doesn't know that – he probably just suspected that your husband was affiliated somehow and dragged him out for questioning. Otherwise, he probably would have killed him outright. I'm also going to make the assumption that Douglas didn't tell him anything, and Driscoll, thinking that he was hiding his affiliation, had his boys drag him into an alleyway and beat him. Luckily yours-truly came around the right time and saved the day, which leads us to this."

The Doctor turned to watch Douglas in his restless sleep. His thoughts not done, the skinny, suited man spoke again. "But that leads me thinking; Douglas was leading this rebellion, but seeing as how he's so badly injured – broken ribs, bleeding, bruises, swelling, all sorts of nastiness – who is next in command?" He turned to look at Kaia with a knowing gaze. "So, how many men are under you, now that you're in charge of this little revolution?"

Kaia looked at him, dumbfounded

"Oh, I am goooooood," he said, very pleased with himself.

Kaia opened her mouth, looking for the right words. Eventually, she found one.

"HOW…?"

"Oh, us make-believe creatures are just so incredibly clever." The Doctor tapped his forehead with a wink and a smirk. "Now, I just want to make certain of one thing before I go to bed, just so I know what I'm dealing with. Driscoll – people have seen him. He's not non-human entity or a puppet or anything, right? Not a Jagrafess or a Dalek or anything?"

"No, he's human. Just a man with too much power and too few morals," Kaia assured him. She paused. "Wait? Daleks are real too?"

"G'night, Kaia," the Doctor said as he walked down the hallway to the guest bedroom.

…

"So, wait, _Douglas_ is a revolutionary?" Mickey asked. "He didn't seem like one. Not very Che Guevera, is he?"

"I know, right?" Rose responded. "But we had only met him when he was hurt. I'm sure no one seems incredibly heroic or brave or world-changing they have a broken nose, two fractured ribs, and can barely walk."

"Pssshhh. I'm sure you'd think the Doctor would," said Mickey.

The Doctor made a silly, yet pleased face. "Well, I wouldn't know about that. I've never broken a nose before."

Jackie just 'humphed'.

…

_Well, after posting a couple of one-shots, here's the next chapter! Expect to see all sorts of fanfiction from me for the next few weeks; both new chapters of this and one-shots. I've caught a particularly nasty bug, and will more-or-less have to be absent from the real word from anywhere between two weeks to two months. Naturally, this means lots of fanfiction and knitting._

_Many thanks to _**Kelkat9**_ for reviewing the last chapter. Now, I generally don't like to ask for reviews, but I'm beginning to wonder if anyone is actually reading this._


End file.
